Charles Band

Decadent Evil II (2007)

Decadent Evil II (2007)
AKA Decadent Evil Dead II

Starring Jill Michelle, Daniel Lennox, Jessica Morris, Ricardo Gil, Jon-Paul Gates, James C. Burns, Mike Muscat, Rory Williamson

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Decadent Evil II has a bigger budget, more FX, and more decadence than the original film. I guess in that way it’s everything you could want a sequel to be. Somewhere in the writing process, though, they forgot to add in enough of the comedic elements that helped the original film be the dumb fun it was. Decadent Evil II isn’t anywhere close to straight horror, but it’s much too straight for a story as inherently dumb and recycled as this one is.

Our story picks up shortly after the events of Decadent Evil, with the vampire Sugar (Jill Michelle) and her human boyfriend Dex (Daniel Lennox) on the run with the caged homunculus Marvin in tow. Also along for the ride is the corpse of Phil Fondacaro’s character Ivan (played here by Ricardo Gil), stuffed into a suitcase. I guess being the corpse of a three-foot-tall vampire hunter has its benefits. Sugar and Dex are tracking down the elder vampire that will take the place of Morella (see DE1) as leader of the vampire bloodline, and their search has brought them to good ol’ Littlerock, AR. And where might this bloodthirsty fiend of the night be hiding his dusty bones? In a strip club, naturally.

Decadent Evil (2005)

Decadent Evil (2005)
AKA Decadent Evil Dead

Starring Debra Mayer, Jill Michelle, Raelyn Hennessee, Phil Fondacaro, Daniel Lennox, John F. Schaffer, Hazel Dean, Roger Toussaint

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

The experienced B-movie viewer is well aware of the “no bad movie can be short enough” principle, so any movie artificially trying to extend its runtime is immediately suspect. I’d guess that even Charles Band wouldn’t hold it against you if you judged Decadent Evil harshly in the first 15 minutes — which consist of 10 minutes from Vampire Journals, three minutes of opening credits, and two minutes of actual movie. And that’s the real shame about Decadent Evil: it’s actually pretty damn entertaining underneath all the low-budget shenanigans. It’s a film that reminds me how some stories just aren’t meant to be feature length; once you get past the padding, Decadent Evil is about as long as it needs to be. Part of that is that it’s built upon a foundation of vampire movie cliches and the characters are all fairly one-note, but nearly every element of the film is fun, which makes up for a lot of the so-called shortcomings.

Trophy Heads (2014)

Starring Adam Noble Roberts, Maria Olsen, Linnea Quigley, Jacqueline Lovell, Denice Duff, Brinke Stevens, Michelle Bauer, Darcy DeMoss, Irena Murphy, Jessica Morris, Jean Louise O’Sullivan, Amy Paffrath, Robin Sydney, Carel Struycken, Kristine DeBell, Gregory Niebel, Stuart Gordon, David DeCoteau, J. Scott

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: As long as it’s fun I’ll be satisfied, and with this many classic scream queens I don’t see how it won’t be fun.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

For many years now, Full Moon has made movies that a mainstream viewer, or even an old fan from the glory days who missed Full Moon’s last 15 years of questionable movies, wouldn’t hesitate to call “strange” or “out there” or “shit.” For those that stumble upon the movies unaware of what they’re getting themselves into (like the Redbox patrons), I’m sure the general reaction is something close to, “Who would watch this?” Hardcore Full Moon fans, that’s who! Throughout changing video landscapes and formats, Full Moon continues to pump out films for their fans (and pretty much no one else). So it makes perfect sense that their latest venture, Trophy Heads (which debuted in June as a five-part web series exclusively on Full Moon Streaming), is not just a film for their fans, but a film about those very fans.

Well… perhaps that’s a little too broad, as I doubt most Full Moon aficionados would kidnap our favorite stars, murder them, and mount their heads on the wall, but you get the idea. Anyway, yes, Trophy Heads is about a fan who rounds up six of his favorite ’80s scream queens, keeps them in his home-built basement dungeon, and then murders them while making them recreate situations from one of the Full Moon movies they were in way back when. There’s not really any depth beyond that, but as this is something directly for Full Moon fans, I don’t think anyone really cares. I certainly didn’t.

Skull Heads (2009)

Starring Robin Sydney, Samantha Light, Steve Kramer, Rane Jameson, Kim Argetsinger, Lucia Stara, Antonio Covatta, Giacomo Gonnella

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: I don’t know, honestly. Not good.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Modern Full Moon films are always a dicey proposition because the budgets are rarely high enough to pull off the FX work necessary to realize their relatively high-concept premises. Skull Heads is no different in the budget department, but it does enough right that this doesn’t matter much. At least for me it didn’t. One look at other reviews for this movie reveals that I may be alone in my love for Skull Heads, but when a film from a fading company is such a return to form I have a hard time believing that I’m its only fan.

Skull Heads begins in a castle dungeon where an angry father is punishing his unruly daughter, Naomi (Robin Sydney), on the rack. Just right there you have two huge pieces of evidence in the return-to-form case: the film is set in a real castle (a hallmark of tons of Full Moon films), and the creepy, unsettling family dynamics. Creepy families are arguably more of a horror movie thing than an actual Full Moon trademark, but with something as unique and defining in the “creepy family” horror sub-genre as Head of the Family (and that’s just one of many creepy families in their catalog), you know they’ve done some serious work in the genre. And the Arkhoff family in Skull Heads is one of Full Moon’s most fucked up and interesting to watch families.

Auditions (1978)

auditions_5 Starring Bonnie Werchan, Rick Cassidy, Linnea Quigley, Carolyn Burch, Robert Staats, Linda York, Alan Simons, Molly Manning, Jennifer West, William Margold, Peter Risch, Greg Travis, Adore O’Hara, Michael Hardin, Freddie Dawson, Jeffrey Lampert, Joey Camen, Tony Popson

Directed by Harry Hurwitz

Expectations: Very interested, but I don’t expect much.

Auditions isn’t much of a good film (or a film at all for that matter), but it is an interesting document of a time. Whether it is truly a documentary — as the opening of the film and its DVD intro by producer Charles Band suggests — or more of a pieced-together recreation of reality is a question ever-present while watching the players disrobe and reveal their various sexual fantasies. Regardless of the reality it may or may not contain, Auditions was made during the late ’70s, and as a low-budget film shot on 16mm in a Santa Monica office building, it captures the vibe of the late ’70s exactly how a big-budget film never could.

The premise is really where the film gets its basic attraction. Sometime in 1978, Charles Band placed full-page ads in all the Hollywood trade papers, announcing an open audition for his next film, Fairy Tales 2. They were looking for the world’s sexiest woman and man, as well as the world’s most unusual act or personality. That’ll sure get ’em to come out of the woodwork! The thing is, there never was a Fairy Tales 2, and as far as I can tell, there never was any intention of making one. That’s one way to make a low-budget movie!

Fairy Tales (1978)

Starring Don Sparks, Sy Richardson, Robert Staats, Brenda Fogarty, Linnea Quigley, Irwin Corey, Robert Harris, Simmy Bow, Martha Reeves, Frank Ray Perilli, Angelo Rossitto, Bob Leslie, Jeff Doucette, Lindsay Freeman, Nai Bonet, Angela Aames, Anne Gaybis, Lee Arries

Directed by Harry Hurwitz

Expectations: Fairly high, after how surprisingly enjoyable Cinderella was.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Hot off the heels of Cinderella and her snapping pussy, Charles Band was eager to recapture the audience that craved erotic musicals based on fairy tales. But instead of picking just one and running with it, he decided to lump a whole bunch into one movie. For me, this makes Fairy Tales a far less successful film as the narrative has no drive other than to take us from one scene of nudity to the next, but I guess that’s kinda the whole point in a movie like this.

The poster and the trailer proudly display what type of movie Fairy Tales is, but as the stately opening credits played I imagined a couple of clueless parents bringing their kids along for an old-fashioned good time. “Old King Cole was a merry old soul, and this one’s going to be a lot of fun, kiddos!” I know this type of movie wouldn’t have played a general cinema in the ’70s, but just imagine! They’d storm out in a huff during the first scene when the royal ~~doctors~~ ~~experts~~ sex-perts sing the flaccid prince a song of how he must rise to the occasion and get to producing an heir by Thursday or he’ll lose his kingdom. The first nudity comes just six minutes in, but our imaginary family would be long gone by then, with lyrics ushering them out the door like, “They only make semen white and urine yellow so that you know whether you’re comin’ or goin’.”

Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong (2013)

Starring John Patrick Jordan, Robin Sydney, Sonny Carl Davis, The Don, Michelle Mais, Bob Ramos, Victoria Levine, Ryan Curry, Amy Paffrath, Masuimi Max, Mindy Robinson, Chanell Heart, Tian Wang, Jinhee Joung, Chance A. Rearden, Joss Glennie-Smith, Orson Chaplin

Directed by Charles Band

Expectations: I don’t even know, honestly. On the low end, for sure.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

Despite what that poster to the right might make you think, Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong is not a movie for everyone. I’m inclined to go with the tired adage, “It’s for the fans,” but since I’m not the biggest fan of either series and I really enjoyed this one, I can’t say that it’s as exclusive as that. And liking this movie leaves me with a bit of a conundrum. I’ve lambasted some of Full Moon’s modern films for a few recurrent reasons: being excessively trashy, being questionably racist and for being shameless in their self-promotion of the company’s merch. The conundrum comes when Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong is all three and yet I still liked it. I guess what it boils down to is that when it’s not being horrible, Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong is a lot of stupid fun. I can’t fully explain it, but I definitely enjoyed Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong. Most of it, anyway.

As the fourth entry in both the Gingerdead Man and Evil Bong series, there’s definitely a bit of baggage going into this one. So thank God Full Moon decided to pair the heroes from the respective series with a new friend each, allowing them to regale their new acquaintances (and the audience) with stories of what happened in the previous films. But wait, this is a movie! Who wants to hear boring stories about what happened when you can just show a bunch of clips from said movies? Charles Band actually has the gumption to do this to summarize all three previous Evil Bong films, as well as the first Gingerdead Man movie. The other two Gingerdead films are apparently non-canon, which makes sense as they’re not about anything even remotely related to the tale of blood and dough told in the first film. Surprisingly though, I actually enjoyed the recaps as it had been a while since I’d seen the films so it got me back up to speed.